Where did that Olympic legacy go?

London 2012 was supposed to boost sport in schools, but eating disorders are
more common than ever

The plight of 18-year-old Laura Willmott, who died from anorexia, makes harrowing reading for any parent, not least because Laura was deemed old enough to make the decisions governing her carePhoto: PA

Could Britain’s body image be any more warped? It’s hard to believe that we spent last summer gazing in admiration and envy at our honed, toned Olympians. We watched the lithe, fit, not necessarily able‑bodied, athletes run and swim and dive. We were riveted by Bradley Wiggins cycling and Katherine Grainger rowing to victory; here were sportsmen and women of all shapes and sizes; the one thing they had in common was that they were in peak physical condition.

But instead of striving to emulate them, we snacked in front of the telly and put on a collective 18.9 million stone – much of it, apparently, in Tamworth, which has led to the town being crowned the chubbiest place in the country.

Whither the inspirational 2012 legacy, now that we have figures from the Health and Social Care Information Centre (HSCIC) showing that 10 per cent of children are obese by the time they enter primary school? More alarming still, that rises to an appalling 20 per cent by the time they leave, presumably having devoured their SATS (and the classroom furniture).

At the other end of the spectrum, we also learnt this week of the death, from anorexia, of “bright and beautiful” Laura Willmott, a privately educated 18-year-old, who used her considerable intelligence to engage in what was described as “breathtaking” deceit against those who fought so hard to keep her alive.

Her terrible plight makes harrowing reading for any parent, not least because once she passed her milestone birthday, Laura was deemed old enough to make the decisions governing her care.

Old enough maybe, but surely not well enough. It’s hard to reconcile the photograph of a pretty, poised teenager with the medical details that emerged in the coroner’s court – malnourishment, hair loss, a weight of five stone that left her too weak to walk and reduced her to effortful crawling.

Her mother, Vickie Townsend, a nurse, was deeply unhappy when her daughter was discharged from hospital in Bristol in October 2011 as “an experiment” to see if she could cope. She couldn’t. Within weeks she was re‑hospitalised and died. Now it is her family who must see if they can cope.

Laura’s case is an extreme example, but figures from the HSCIC reveal that the rate of hospital admissions for treatment of eating disorders increased by 16 per cent over the past year. Most – 91 per cent – were girls and the majority 55 per cent were aged between 10 and 19.

Anorexia is mental illness rooted in an individual’s irrational belief that they are fat. The obesity epidemic arises from parents en masse overfeeding their children in the irrational belief that they aren’t fat.

The HSCIC discovered that half of the parents of obese children thought they were “about the right weight”. Had they watched them puffing, thighs chafing, on school Sports Day or struggling to attempt a game of five aside, they might have been forced to confront the truth and their own culpability.

London 2012 was heralded as an Olympics that would bring with it a lasting legacy, most significantly the boosting of sport in schools, to everyone’s gain.

Would that this next generation could share that same body image, where strength rather than skinniness is the sought-after goal for girls and both sexes regard food is a fuel to be burned off running about rather than an emotional prop.

My 10-year-old recently learnt to surf, a sport that requires little outlay (aside from the entirely necessary wetsuit) and is, when I think about it, the perfect pursuit for an island nation. It’s exhilarating and challenging, demanding as it requires concentration, patience, and resilience, and I dearly hope she persists with it.

Meanwhile, leading educationalists involved in school sports are already flagging up warnings that the 2012 legacy is fading fast following government funding cuts. We mustn’t allow investment to be channelled exclusively towards elite athletes.

We need a collective will to push through radical reform at school level, or else the only gold medals our children are likely to win will be for sofa-surfing.

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Here’s hoping the Oscars are Misérable

I do hope Anne Hathaway wins an Oscar for Les Misérables, even though I haven’t seen it; sorry, too tragic for a night out. I loved her in The Princess Diaries, though.

But, hey, the Academy Awards are less about the performance in the movie than the appearance in the frock. I once attended the Vanity Fair post-Oscars party, and while it was glitzy, ritzy and undeniably star-studded, there was no order of precedence and no script, so everyone stood around in a weird A-list limbo, not speaking.

There was Jim Carrey, whose teeth are even more snowblindingly white in real life, and Willem Dafoe, small but perfectly formed, whose “date” was his agent. By comparison, Amazonian Minnie Driver was vertiginously, comically tall in heels, the late great Tony Curtis winked lasciviously at me as he twirled a Marilyn Monroe-alike round the dance floor, and Madonna (tiny, gnarled, grumpy) reclined in state on a sofa surrounded by fawning acolytes and burly security.

But, to my great joy, there were so few awestruck civilians to go around that I was in greater demand than a proverbial line of Bolivian Marching Powder.

The sainted Meryl Streep was close enough to touch. So I did. Well, actually she touched me first.

“Miss Streep, you were robbed of the Oscar, robbed!” was my opening gambit.

I do hope I don’t have to leap on a plane to ply the lovely Anne with similar platitudes.

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Now look here, David …

Look, have you noticed that whenever David Cameron is challenged on air, he immediately wrests back the debate by opening with the marvellously dismissive “L” word?

Look, John Humphrys or Jim Naughtie or Sarah Montague, it’s a really effective rhetorical device. Because it doesn’t matter whether he’s been poleaxed by the deficit target or skewered over the NHS, once he says “Look” in that patronising-yet-oddly-stirring way, nobody remembers the question.

Sometimes he says “Listen” instead, just to shake things up a bit, and that works too, in a “let’s just draw a line under the whole sorry business and move on” sort of way.

Look, it’s very irritating and manipulative. But, listen, it’s also sheer political genius.

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Happiness is a gay best friend

I was genuinely shocked by the scientific study revealing that a girl’s best friend is a gay guy. I mean, what in Gok Wan is going on?

Do people actually get research grants to prove the bleedin’ obvious?

I’m regrettably “between” gay friends at present, which sounds like a defamatory stereotype – to anyone but a gay BFF.

Aside from telling you that, yes, you do look like a right old porker in that and, no, don’t call your ex (because, girlfriend, needy is a bigger turn-off than a Cher B-side), a true gay soulmate will be too preoccupied giving offence to take it.

For years I enjoyed a Will & Grace flatshare with a friend who would introduce me as his “token hettie” – heterosexual – and flirt relentlessly with my boyfriends in a bid to demonstrate that any man can be turned.

I don’t know if he succeeded, but I do know I mist over with nostalgia at the opening chords of I Will Survive.

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Food: a modern fairy tale

It’s long been argued that nursery rhymes and fairy tales are a safe way of exploring our deepest human fears.

Hansel and Gretel focuses on abandonment. The Three Little Pigs centres on the importance of adhering to building regulations. Sing a Song of Sixpence, with its four and 20 blackbirds, offers the perfect preparation for – opening a bag of Tesco salad containing a dead warbler.

Even vegetarians are no longer safe from the adulteration of the food supply chain; no wonder, what with pease pudding hot and pease pudding cold, on sale in major supermarkets nine days old, and spiders in the curds and whey chill cabinet.

I say we dispatch the health and safety biosecurity heavies to Old MacDonald’s Farm immediately, before things become impossibly Grimm.